Quadrupeds, 9 



of a great number of animals, the living representatives of which are 

 now confined to the intertropical regions : in company with these we 

 also find the vestiges of tropical vegetables. A moment's reflection 

 vrill therefore be suflicient to convince us that these productions have 

 nothing in common with our temperate and humid island, and we 

 cannot associate together animals so distinct without a violation of 

 truth. That the remains of such animals exist in the earth beneath 

 our feet, is most unquestionable ; but that they vrere ever the 

 denizens of a cold, humid and sea-girt spot in the ocean, like that 

 which now serves as a sepulchre for their bones, there is no evidence 

 whatever to support. Such animals could not be introduced into 

 our list, even of extinct British animals, without utterly violating all 

 known principles of geographical distribution. If on this question 

 hypotheses must be built, let us resort to the more probable one that 

 the ground on which we tread was once a portion of some vast conti- 

 nent, scorched by a vertical sun, rather than by supposing these crea- 

 tures ever to have been the inhabitants of an island, such as Great 

 Britain at the present day, thus unnaturally associate them with 

 others fitted by nature for a present residence amongst us. 



The second question arises on the propriety of retaining among the 

 productions of a country those of which history or tradition furnishes 

 evidence more or less satisfactory. There is now a spirit of investiga- 

 tion on foot which makes sad havoc with the belief to which our fathers 

 would have cheerfully assented. Naturalists now doubt the very exist- 

 ence of the Dodo, while a few years back, aye, within our memory, three 

 distinct species were enumerated, the colour, figure and size carefully 

 laid down, their nest and eggs described with minute and scrupulous 

 accuracy, and their entire history detailed as fully as that of the barn- 

 door fowl ; all this was copied into the * Encyclopedia Britannica,' a 

 book then regarded as second only to the Scriptures in value and au- 

 thority. It is therefore far safer to leave to history those animals which, 

 abandoning their ancient haunts, have fairly entered into its province. 



The third question touches the dog, the ox, the sheep, the goat, 

 the horse, the ass, the turkey, the peacock, the pintado, the goose, the 

 duck, and those numerous other useful animals that have accompa- 

 nied man in all his enterprises, and settled around him whether he 

 has pitched his tent in the city or the desert : these also must be re- 

 jected, because they exist not in a state of nature ; they are preserved 

 by man's especial care, and without that care they must inevitably 

 perish, even by the hands of man himself. Could we suppose a ma- 

 numission of all the domesticated animals to take place by an act of 



